Dzhokhar Tsarnaev spoke in court for the first time Wednesday. During the formal sentencing hearing, about 30 victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and their family members described the attack's impact on their lives. A judge then formally sentenced Tsarnaev to death.

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"I'm sorry for the lives I have taken, for the suffering I have caused you, for the damage I have done," Tsarnaev said. He also apologized to the victims.

"I ask Allah to have mercy on me, my brother and my family," he said. Tsarnaev will await his execution at a federal prison in Indiana.

In May, a federal jury condemned Tsarnaev to die for bombing the 2013 marathon with his brother. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when the brothers detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line.

Under the federal death penalty law, Judge George O'Toole Jr. is required to impose the jury's sentence.

Among those who spoke at the hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court was Karen Rand McWatters, a Maine woman who lost her leg in the bombing. Cameras are not allowed in federal court.

Tsarnaev wore a dark sports jacket with a collared shirt and no tie Wednesday. He appeared impassive as he chatted with his lawyers before the start of the hearing.

Also in the courtroom were Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, who was seated with the victims, and the parents of the youngest bombing victim, 8-year-old Martin Richard.

Tsarnaev was convicted of 30 federal charges for planning and carrying out the terror attack with his older brother, Tamerlan. Days after the bombings, in the midst of a massive manhunt, the brothers killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer and engaged in a wild gun battle with police in the Boston suburb of Watertown. Tamerlan died after being shot by police and run over by Dzhokhar as the younger brother escaped in a stolen car.

Tsarnaev's lawyers admitted he participated in the bombings but argued that Tamerlan was the driving force behind the attack.

In a note he scrawled in a boat he was found hiding in, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said the attack was meant to retaliate against the U.S. for its actions in Muslim countries.